Self‐rated health and employment status in chronic haemodialysis patients

Abstract

Objective: Along with survival and other types of clinical outcome, physical, mental and social well‐being are important indicators of the effectiveness of the medical care that haemodialysis (HD) patients receive. The present cross‐sectional study was designed to assess self‐rated health in HD patients from a large Danish HD centre compared to a Danish general population sample with similar sex and age distributions. Furthermore, employment status and associations between self‐rated health and clinical, social and demographic factors were investigated. Material and Methods: A total of 150 patients were included. They were asked to complete the Short Form 36 (SF‐36) questionnaire and additional questions concerning education and employment status. The SF‐36 consists of eight scales representing physical, social, mental and general health. Clinical, biochemical and dialysis adequacy data were obtained from hospital records. Results: A total of 112 patients completed the questionnaire, giving a response rate of 75%. Compared to the general population sample, HD patients scored significantly lower on all eight SF‐36 scales (p < 0.01), with the greatest difference being observed for items concerning physical functioning. No correlation was found between any of the eight scales and estimates of dialysis adequacy. Of patients aged 18–60 years, 22% were in employment. Conclusion: In a large group of Danish HD patients, self‐rated health (and especially physical function) was found to be substantially impaired compared to the general population and only a small proportion of patients were employed. We believe that results obtained using the SF‐36 questionnaire represent an independent marker of health status in HD patients and should be considered, together with common clinical outcome measures, when monitoring patients. Furthermore, we believe that self‐rated health questionnaires are a useful tool for evaluating the need for and the effects of physical activity programmes in a dialysis unit.

• chronic kidney failure
• employment
• haemodialysis
• health status
• quality of life